Who Is ‘They’?

National Review ^ | April 25, 2008 | Victor Davis Hanson

[moderatewolverine]

Recently Barack Obama got into trouble by explaining to an affluent San Francisco audience why the cash-strapped, mostly white, working classes in Pennsylvania and the Midwest do not logically vote for his brand of economic populism, but instead cling to issues that sophisticates can see are extraneous to their economic plight.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

That sentence has been analyzed to death. But a single word struck me — who are Obama’s distant they?

Are they basically decent people, without a lot of education, who turn to religious and national superstitions like guns and church, or to primordial passions like racism and xenophobia, in lieu of Obama’s nostrum of “hope” and “change”? “They,” then, turn out to be the nice, but deluded folk — and yet sometimes dangerous people when riled by immigrants and other races that don’t look like them?

But the bitter they can’t be the same they that Obama also said are jacking up the cost of his condiments in the store?

“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”

[Nipfan]

Yes, he really did make that remark.

This is a brilliant article. It shows both the discontent that they (the Obamas!) are peddling and the blame someone, anyone mentality that they’re propagating. Michelle always looks militant, full of righteous wrath at “them”.

[maine-iac7]

“they” = White Folks

We know who he means - he just has to be made to say it outloud...

"...aren’t like them ."

I'm still waiting for someone to ask the great obamama to define who the people are that the bitter, typical white, gun-clinging, Bible-clutching folk have "antipathy" over.

He was in the arms of San Franciscan elite -

He needs to define both the "they's" and the "them's"?

Meanwhile, this is who I am - and I have a visor hat upon which I painted: "Typical White Person", so I am ready to keep the word out there for the duration, lest 'folk' forget:

[maine-iac7]

To nit pick, arugula is not a condiment,

To end with = it's hardly a vital food staple and he made this assinine remark about the price of arugula in Whole Food stores “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”

Probably not too many people he was talking too had "gone into a Whole Food store lately" as he was in a state that has NO Whole Food stores...

this is a gaff that would have been headlines across the land had it been made by McCain

[KansasGirl]

“Yet for the true statesman, they is rarely used, since the interest is not in finding generic culprits for the past problem, but in offering specifics for the future solution — requiring the use of the now rare “we” and “us.”’

VDH really hits the nail on the head in this article!

[ctdonath2]

Another gaffe is that Whole Foods is a trendy, upscale store that sells only premium & exotic foods at high prices. Even the most mundane vegetables there are obviously hand-picked to be the freshest, most colorful, best-looking ones available, grown under the best "organic" conditions possible. Heck yeah arugula is expensive in Whole Foods - I mean it's Whole Foods he's talking about!

The more accurate comment would have been “Anybody gone into Whole Foods and see what they charge? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for stuff.” I'm making a good buck and I can't afford to shop there.

He complains about the price of an upscale food sold at an upscale store? Yeah, that'll resonate with the common voter. Where's that "It's an elitist thing, you wouldn't understand" poster?

[reformedliberal]

I absolutely agree!

We don't care for the arugala-type greens and haven't been in a Whole Foods for years. The nearest one is 90 miles away and there is a Trader Joe's in the same town, which is way more affordable for the few times we get there.

It was a totally clueless, elitist comment, not even factoring in the price points at Whole Foods. I cannot imagine what the prices on organic chicken are now. They were way too spendy for me, even years ago. I also seem to recall that at that time, WF had apparently bought out many small independent organic labels, as there were way fewer individual businesses represented and a lot more house labels. I also recall that Whole Foods blocked unionization back then, which I would have thought would make it non-PC for the leftists.

[purpleraine]

They = You People